"J" is an autistic child who also has post-surgical and bowel-related chronic pain. His autism manifested itself as aggression rather than simple withdrawal, resulting in severe behavioral problems. Authorities in Rhode Island granted the parents a license to give their child medical marijuana (they opted to do so in the form of brownies). The results were dramatic:

Pre-pot, J. ate things that weren’t food… His pica become so uncontrollable we couldn’t let him sleep with a pajama top (it would be gone by morning) or a pillow (ditto the case and the stuffing)… The worst part was watching him scream in pain on the toilet, when what went in had to come out… Almost immediately after we started the cannabis, the pica stopped. Just stopped. J. now sleeps with his organic wool-and-cotton, hypoallergenic, temptingly chewable comforter.

Next, we started seeing changes in J.’s school reports… An aggression is defined as any attempt or instance of hitting, kicking, biting, or pinching another person. For the past year, he’d consistently had 30 to 50 aggressions in a school day, with a one-time high of 300. The charts for June through July, by contrast, showed he was actually having days—sometimes one after another—with zero aggressions.

This post is likely to elicit strong opinions; I would encourage everyone to at least browse the original source articles rather than basing judgments only on the excerpts above.

Dude. All i gots to say is that pots my friend and has been for a long time. The fact that it's illegal is my enemy and has been for a long time. Making pot legal will not fix all the drug problems in america, but it will reduce the amount of convicts in american prison by something like 50%. thats like mad moneys we dont have to pay to the government in order to house innocent men in cages that teach them how to be criminals. Feel free to correct my stats up there, but i think thats right. word. duces

Sadly I am now on probation for self-medicating my Tourette's syndrome with cannabis. I'm willing to accept the fact that I'm being punished for breaking the law, but in quitting and paying my debt to society, my Tourette's syndrome has gotten much worse. I would move to a state that allows medical marijuana, but I'm not allowed to leave the state at the moment.

I'm glad that this boy is getting the help he needed in a manner that doesn't violate the law. I really think that the United States ought to seriously reconsider its laws regarding cannabis. I also really think it will be a very long time before this happens. Every success story such as this one reminds me even more how many people are ignoring a viable option of treatment because of the negative stigma placed on it due to a draconian law. Perhaps one day cannabis will be universally accepted as legitimate medicine once more, as it was a hundred years ago. I own a very old leather-bound copy of the USP-NF which lists cannabis as a useful drug for a number of conditions, and even recommends a company to purchase it from.

I'm not saying every drug used 100 years ago was valid, in fact far from it, but while most were discontinued or phased out by finding better alternatives, or through rigorous medical testing, cannabis was thrown out generally for racial and economic reasons.

Can someone please make estrogen-laced brownies before I hit monopause in a few years? THANX!!

BTW, I am very happy for this family.Generally, if your child has autism, you will be forced to either spend all of the money you have for treatments that do very little or nothing at all or feel horrible about not being able to afford to help your own child. Congratulations to this family!!